{"id":142,"date":"2011-05-16T04:06:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T01:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/?p=142"},"modified":"2011-05-16T04:06:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T01:06:53","slug":"marjorie-spock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/marjorie-spock\/","title":{"rendered":"Marjorie Spock"},"content":{"rendered":"

B<\/span>y William Jens Jensen<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

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For the better part of a century, Marjorie Spock has had a beneficial influence on the development of anthroposophy in North America. She has been a eurythmist, a Waldorf teacher, and an active practi\u00adtioner and advocate of biodynamics and community renewal. She has written several books and articles, including <\/em>In Celebration of the Human Heart; Fairy Worlds and Workers; Teaching As a Lively Art; and <\/em>Eurythmy. She has also translated several books, including <\/em>Nutrition and <\/em>The Nature of Sub\u00adstance by Rudolf Hauschka. <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Marjorie Spock was born in New Haven, Connect\u00adicut, early in the twentieth century. At the age of eighteen, filled with excitement and plans to study dance and with no notion of anthroposophy or the arts associated with it, she traveled to Dornach, Switzerland. Only a year earlier, in 1921, while a counselor at a girls\u2019 camp, the painting instructor there had spoken of a wonderful dance program in \u201cDoor Knock\u201d (as she heard the name). She under\u00adstood these words to mean \u201cKnock and it shall be opened unto you,\u201d and knew instantly that she needed to go there. <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Except for brief interruptions, she spent much of her youth in Dornach. No doubt, she experienced many deep and lasting impressions during that time, and even first impressions can stir a desire for self-development. Marjorie Spock says that when she first saw the first Goetheanum she \u201cthought it was the ugliest thing\u201d she\u2019d ever seen. Later, she heard that Rudolf Steiner had said that, for those who are still unable to perceive their own inner nature, \u201cone\u2019s whole stature as a human soul became clear to oneself when seeing the Goet\u00adheanum for the first time.\u201d <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Later, she became seriously ill and was confined to Dr. Ita Wegman\u2019s clinic. Around Christmastime, she was released for a brief time, and on that New Year\u2019s Eve, she witnessed the complete destruction of the Goetheanum by fire. She said, <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI think that something in me burned up that needed to be burned up as I watched it. And, for the first time, I became truly interested in anthro\u00adposophy. Up until that time, I had loved eurythmy; now the whole seriousness of what was at stake there impressed itself on me, which I had not felt before. So I began to study anthroposophy in great earnest.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The following year, at nineteen, she was able to attend the Christmas Conference, the series of meetings called to reoganize and renew the Gen\u00aderal Anthroposophical Society. Although young and inexperienced in such matters, she neverthe\u00adless sensed the significance of that event.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Around Christmas 1924, she returned to the U.S. and decided to support herself by working in an anthroposophic bookstore in New Haven. That work proved to be a tremendously valuable experi\u00adence\u2014 \u201cAfter all,\u201d she said, \u201cI had a whole library of anthroposophy at my fingertips, and I read and studied with great seriousness during those years.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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After working in the bookshop for three years, she returned to Europe and studied for three years at the eurythmy school in Stuttgart. Later, she went to Dornach, where she performed eurythmy on the Goetheanum stage. During that time, she became familiar with Marie Steiner, who was acively involved in most of the eurythmy rehears\u00adals. \u201cFrau Dr. Steiner was simply magnificent,\u201d she recalls, \u201cbut rather unapproachable.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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When asked about her experience of Rudolf Steiner during that time, what she expressed was singular: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I looked at his head, and I looked at his hands as I sat in his lectures, and I had the feeling that his head was sort of a condensation of all he was speaking. And the words that he was saying were tremendously significant, although I can\u2019t say that I remember more than a sentence of all the things that he said in those years. But there was one point where I remember his gesture and his words exactly, and that was when he expressed \u201cthe wake-up call to become a person of initiative.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Looking back, I had the sense that he meant something completely different from what hap\u00adpened. People in the society tried to become little Rudolf Steiners, and I felt that we needed to pull together and get an entirely new kind of feeling about community\u2014in a truly Christian sense, really helpful to one another, spiritually and in every possible way\u2014rather than indulging in all the criticism. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s incredible that people should not appreciate each other, because we are, each one, developing as individuals, each one developing a completely unique ability of some kind. But instead of look\u00ading upon this as an absolute treasure, we cut the ground out from under the feet of people. Largely this is what has happened. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Rudolf Steiner said that, if any group of people gets together with an ideal purpose, an archangel is assigned to that group to guide it. But I don\u2019t think that can happen unless we have the right attitude toward one another.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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When asked for her impression of Rudolf Steiner\u2019s appearance, Marjorie Spock said that \u201che appeared very much like Abraham Lincoln.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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He looked as though he bore up most manly under the most terrible burden … but, of course, he had many warm personal relationships. My father came over to see him when I was in Dor\u00adnach, and I was able to introduce him to Rudolf Steiner. When we departed this wonderful meet\u00ading, my father said first of all, \u201cI think he liked me. I was surprised at the way he looked\u2014he looked just like anybody else!\u201d I took that to be a comple\u00adment to Rudolf Steiner to say that he looked like anybody else.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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When she again moved back to the U.S., Marjorie Spock taught for five years at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City. Later, she spent a year teaching in a school at the Hales community near the border of Maine and Canada. The community was involved in operating a dairy and vegetable farm on 12,000 acres of forest and lakes. They also had a \u201csensitive crystalization\u201d laboratory, which was able to test the nutritional vitality of food.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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She returned to New York, this time to Columbia University for a major in education. Having no college degree, the school administration gave her \u201cnine hours of examinations in all subjects\u201d to help determine where to place her. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Due to my studies of Anthroposophy and all the interesting things that Rudolf Steiner was always reporting, I was able to pass them all. The dean of admissions said to me that he didn\u2019t \u201cknow of a single school in America that can match that\u201d\u2014 especially considering that I had an IQ that was only just respectible.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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As a result of those tests, the college awarded her credit for three years of college and allowed her into the post-graduate program. After two years, she received a master\u2019s degree. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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For the next five years, she taught at \u201ctwo of the big progressive schools\u201d in New York\u2014the Ethical Culture School and the Dalton school (or \u201cchil\u00addren\u2019s university\u201d). From there, she went on to teach eurythmy for eight years at the Garden City Waldorf School. It was while living in Garden City that she began her lifelong passion for biodynamic agriculture, which led her and a friend to buy 140 acres of land in Upstate New York.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Living on their new farm, Marjorie Spock and her friend became interested in producing and selling organic vegetables, but their land was always being sprayed with pesticides\u2014something that had also happened in Garden City. They decided that it \u201cwas absolutely essential to challenge this practice\u201d by getting an injunction against spraying private lands. Although the suit, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court, was unsuccessful, it raised aware\u00adness of the issue and enfluenced the views expressed by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring.<\/em> Even\u00adturally, the courts decided that private lands could not be sprayed without the owners\u2019 consent.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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After Rudolf Steiner\u2019s death in 1925, various diffi\u00adculties and divisions arose in the Anthroposophical Society, which led Marjorie Spock to write two articles on community building, later published under the general title of \u201cGroup Moral Artistry.\u201d They have been widely circulated ever since\u2014 especially among young people according to the author. One of the articles, \u201cThe Art of Goethean Conversation,\u201d was included in the recent edition of Goethe\u2019s Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily <\/em>(see page 74). <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Marjorie Spock\u2019s most popular book these days is Fairy Worlds and Workers.<\/em> It is a sensitive, imagina\u00adtive exploration of nature\u2019s inner beings\u2014its Little People, the elementals, the Middle Kingdom. She says that her feeling for the natural world of fairies arose not clairvoyantly but from her connection with the earth as a farmer and gardener. That feel\u00ading is an ability to read certain signs of nature and to hear what it is asking for.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Today, Marjorie Spock remains active\u2014indeed, an activist. She participates in an anthroposophic study group, she writes, and she enjoys nature, people, and the world around her. Her spirit shines brightly through her words, her sense of humor, and in her concern for our future as human beings and anthroposophists.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By William Jens Jensen For the better part of a century, Marjorie Spock has had a beneficial influence on the development of anthroposophy in North America. She has been a eurythmist, a Waldorf teacher, and an active practi\u00adtioner and advocate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 14:50:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eana.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}